The best humor doesn’t come in with a sledgehammer but a feather duster, each feather a tiny shock of recognition. In Kommer (Sorrow) by the Dutch company Kassys in town for PICA’s TBA:07 Festival, six people deal with the discomfort of not knowing just what to do with themselves and each other in the face of a loss. They make stabs at expressions of grief, at empathy, and an everything’s-okay normalcy that repeatedly go subtly, comically awry. Fidgeting, for example, has never been so funny. Hang onto your house plants.
I want theater that holds up its mirror as a kaleidoscope, that issues an invitation not a command, patient theater that allows for discovery and innovates smartly to “make it new” (i.e. gambit not gimmick). Kassys delivers.
The piece starts with the line, “How are you?” and continues in its second half with an unspoken, “No really, how are you?” asked of its solitary characters in circumstances that, like the lines of dialogue reportedly culled from a soap opera, seem all too familiar.
The final performance of Kommer is tonight at Lincoln Hall at PSU at 8:30 PM.
–Radon
WHAT TO DO NOW?